Baby Foils Abduction Attempt

A six-months old baby has foiled the attempt by a neighbor to abduct her while sleeping in the bosom of her mother in Lagos. She cried immediately her abductor snatched her from the bed, prompting her mother to wake up and raise the alarm, which forced the culprit to drop her and flee. But he was immediately apprehended by neighbors.

But for the quick intervention of operatives of the Lagos State Task Force the young man would have been lynched to death by an irate mob. Operatives of the Task Force arrested the 31-year-old man, Idama Endurance.

According to eyewitness accounts, Endurance, who lives in the same compound with the child’s parents at 55, Oshodi Road, Oshodi, Lagos, allegedly took advantage of the family’s unlocked entrance door to sneak into their one-room apartment at night and attempted to escape with the baby.

Mother of the child 29-year- old, Mrs. Banke Akinyemi, said the suspect sneaked into her room at midnight when she was fast asleep and took the baby girl who was sleeping beside her on the bed but luck came her way when the girl simply identified as Darasimi cried thereby forcing the suspect to dump her and flee.

Neighbors who apprehended suspect were at the point of lynching him to death when men of the Lagos State Task Force on midnight patrol arrived the scene and saved the situation. They rescued the suspect from the angry mob and whisked him to the agency’s office in Oshodi.

Idama, who hails from Obiakuruku area in Delta State, however denied the allegation but incriminated himself with another disclosure.

He argued that he got back home drunk from a birthday party at mid night and had to scale the fence, as the gate was already locked.

He said; “It was after I scaled the fence that I entered into their room, looking for the key to the gate, more so that their door was not locked

“Since I moved into the compound a year ago, I have been eyeing the baby’s mother but had to retreat when our landlady told me she was two months old pregnant”.

Apparently full of praises that he could, after all, live to tell his own side of the story, Idama who claimed to be a trader of ‘linen clothing’ materials at Kairo market, Oshodi, however, confirmed that the presence of men of the Lagos State Task Force saved him from being mobbed.

Meanwhile, in her statement to the police, the landlady of the house, Mrs. Johnson Esther, also a resident of the building, expressed worries at the development but was quick to aver that she had been suspicious of Idama long ago, especially for keeping late nights, and always scaling the fence to gain entry.

While confirming the incident, Chairman of the Task Force, SP Olayinka Egbeyemi, who spoke through the agency’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) Adebayo Taofiq, said but for his men who got to the scene of the incident on time, the story would have been different.

According to Egbeyemi, preliminary investigations conducted by the agency revealed that the suspect truly went into the woman’s room in the mid night, saying the suspect on the directives of CP, Fatai Owoseni, would be transferred to the Lagos State Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Department, (SCIID), Panti, Yaba, Lagos for further investigation.